Backup & SD card unusable for SFOS
asked 2017-09-02 13:31:59 +0200
Well, after upgrading to 2.1.1 my Jolla 1, I used the phone which started to get some problems and ended freezing... a black screen appeared on reboot after Jolla logo, so I had to perform factory reset.
I had made before the upgrade a backup, before resetting I checked from pc (Win 10) if everything was fine in the SD card, all files where in place (at least, I thought that..); the backup files had some strange names made of random ascii characters, but I thought it was windows unable to reknow them.
The reset brought new life to my Jolla, but now it seems my sdcard is unservable to SFOS... I can access all files from phone and PC without problems, but when I try to restore the backup, it says no past backup has been found. Plus, it isn't possible to make new backup (red message reads cannot write on the chosen destination). Other oddities are the same, as choosing to write photos and videos on sdcard reads chosen memory is not available, will use device memory.
Will post some screens hereafter (language is italian).
sd card 
sd card continuation 
backup screen 
camera options screen 
Looks like the content of your SD card are corrupted.
Make a copy of the backup file as soon as possible just in case you lose it.
Try to make a repair of the FAT32 partition. (Either using the windows tools
chkdsk, i think) (For Linux - Jolla happens to lack the necessarydosfsckorfsck.fatcommands to do it nativeyly. This are normally parts of the dosfstools package, but not available currently on your phone).Back-ups have normally a filename like: sailfish_backup_{date}.tar If the directory entry has been corrupted, of course the restore function can't find it. The file it self is a TAR archive and should be open-able in Windows using software like 7-Zip. (Or on you phone using the
DrYak ( 2017-09-02 15:41:33 +0200 )edittarcommand : e.g.:tar tvf /media/sdcard/e3a3b4ad-160e-4359-9519-465dbe89764e/sailfish_backup_2017-08-30T08-52-35Z.tar(T: table/list, V: versbose, F: filename of the archive to open)Well, I couldn't copy none of those corrupted file from windows. Eventually chkdsk restored my sdcard so now I can make a backup and save contents properly. No trace of ancients backup at all. Let me say I'm a bit disappointed, Jolla implemented a backup function that when in need I couldn't use... because a stupid system error I had to restore the phone and lost everything. I don't think this is how things are meant to work. But ok maybe it's me unlucky.
d ( 2017-09-04 12:55:33 +0200 )editJolla can try to implement all they could, they can't do miracle against busted SD cards.
A few advices :
- the backup system also has the option to store the backups on the cloud. It's less private, tough.
- alternatively you can copy the backup tar ball yourself (so it stays in a private secure place)
- when simple copy can't recover files from a busted system, there are a few specific tools that could do it PhotoRec
- in fact, give it a try, perhaps it could even still find bits of data after the disk repair.
- normally a disk repair is a destructive process (it tries to modify the corrupted structure) you indeed do the repair after attempts to copy the files, exactly as you did.
- chkdsk can try to salvage "lost" data not belonging to any file. Look if you have a FOUND directory on the SD card.
- in the future, if you only use this card on machine that support it, try reformatting the card as EXT4 filesystem instead of the default Fat32 or exFAT. It's a bit more stable than Fat32, it's supported by Jolla and most other OSes. Several Android version (e.g.: LineageOS/CyanoGen) also support it. But on windows you'd need a special software/driver.
- When buying an SD card to store critical information, try to get one that supports ECC (e.g.: some high-range of Transcend)
DrYak ( 2017-09-04 13:15:06 +0200 )edit